We appreciate your concern for the integrity of the threads here, but it's against HN's rules to accuse other users of astroturfing without evidence. Asking insinuating questions is just a milder version of accusing, so it's covered by the same rule.

Enthusiastic comments don't count as evidence, especially when the accounts have histories of commenting on lots of other things.

For the avoidance of doubt, I really genuinely was not meaning to accuse or insinuate. When I said I expected the answers to be "no" and "none", I meant it.

Still, the rules are the rules, and I'm sorry I apparently broke them. I will refrain from asking such questions in the future.

(I've just checked the guidelines and the FAQ and don't see any such prohibition. I see things like "be civil" and "avoid gratuitous negativity", but so far as I can tell I didn't violate those. Is there some other place where I could have learned that I wasn't supposed to say what I did?)

I believe you! and didn't mean to imply otherwise.

I've posted a ton about this on the site:

https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix=true&page=0&dateR...

https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix=true&page=0&dateR...

But we haven't added it to the site guidelines yet. I suppose we should, but we try to err on the side of avoiding bloat. Maybe we can treat them like code and find something else in there that can be removed.

I'm not sure, but to me it looks more a bad coincidence that some astroturfing attempt.

hoag: is the original poster with an old account. In some other sites it's common that the OP makes a vacuous comment about how great the story is. Here is less common luckily, but I've seen a few recently.

zanewill9: is a new account. The comment is too exalting and it raises a red flag for me. But if you read the history of the comments of that account, they cover many independent stories and are relevant to each story. So I guess it legit. (Or an extremely good suckpupet.)

Wait, what's going on here? What is astroturfing? Who did('nt?) what wrong?

I'll chime in that I own the first version, it's great and I have no idea how I bought it, maybe directly or in a bundle. But it's been in my Steam library for a long time.

And I'm not affiliated with them at all. ;)

This isn't like Reddit, self promotion is encouraged. I don't think it's a rule violation as-is, but it's kind of funny, because I don't think, if this is actually astroturfing, it's necessary to lie about it. You can simply say, "We made a thing, check it out" on HN.

I prefer seeing stuff directly from the creator. It gives you a chance to enage them with any questions you have. I also like to see it first on HN. More Show HNs, please.

It definitely happens and they are usually easy to spot. It's best to just assume they are connected/involved.

Dan Dixon, the sole author of Universe Sandbox -- he spent three unpaid years writing it alone -- and the lead developer of its rewrite (and founder of Giant Army, which employs a few developers, an astronomer, and even a climatologist), is one of the most honest, forthright people in gaming. Seriously, HN would love his story if you bothered to look. They're not a hypergrowth startup and have traditionally eschewed many forms of marketing. I realize the concept of an aboveboard, mostly marketing-free gaming studio without a growth team or investors or a bottom line and funded entirely by sales of an unexpected hit is foreign on Hacker News, but believe it or not, there is reality outside this valley. Their press kit is a DIY template, for crying out loud; you really, honestly think they're astroturfing a non-gaming Web site like Hacker News?

Universe Simulator is impressive software that does mostly arbitrary N-body at acceptable performance on a workstation (itself a technical feat), it was written by a single individual (again, a feat), and more than that, it's an educational tool disguised as a game which broke into multiple markets unexpectedly. Your comment is hilariously out of place to anyone who remotely follows the gaming world at all. I've always viewed Dan Dixon as a great bootstrapping success story and an example of following through on an idea to the end, when many would have given up long before the success he has found.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that people are willing to make accusations (sorry, "questions" about a financial relationship to spam a message board, which smell a lot like accusations despite your claim to the contrary) about people and organizations they've never heard of based upon a significant number of bad actors in the world, but sometimes a little research wouldn't hurt. There are far too many column inches devoted to these "questions," and far too many people upvoting you, so the irony of your taking on perceived astroturfing is that you've successfully and completely derailed the thread.

Have you actually visited the link? It is available without DRM.

Yes I have and don't lie. The steam logo should be enough to tell anyone that what you're buying is an "all access pass to the steam service". Further than that, might I direct your attention here http://universesandbox.com/faq/#purchase specifically this paragraph https://archive.is/aKZD7#selection-1333.0-1347.254 where they quite clearly say steam is required and that they haven't decided whether it will be drm free at some point.

> Yes I have and don't lie

You've posted many uncivil comments to Hacker News, and we've asked you not to do this before. If you can't or won't stop, we're going to ban your account.

Just because I called him a liar it is suddenly uncivil? Understood. I won't call out liars.

Yes, thank you. The civil way is to assume that someone is mistaken and correct them politely.

I stand corrected, the presence of the Humble Store widget has not the same meaning as it used to, sadly.

I'm glad you see that now.

What does that mean?

Steam is DRM. Can't play without having authenticated. It infects everything or damn near everything these days. Steam is trying very hard to get a monopoly. They want to lock out competition. They want to control everything you may do with the game you bought (rented might be a better verb).

Because of all that what more reason is needed to not buy a particular game?

It's up to the publisher, you can have a completely DRM free game on Steam. For instance, I just copied the FTL game recently from my Steam install folder to my netbook to play on a trip. Steam has never been installed on it.

Indeed, but it is true that Steam has no indication whatsoever when you download a game (or buy one) whether it's DRM-free or not. It's not explicit in any way.